Tide
by PallaPlease
Summary: [Two years after movie.]  A different sort of reunion fanfic.  Chihiro has forgotten, the sea calls to her, and Haku returns.  Vignette. [2: Furthering of the taffy scene.  What things are seen through windows.]
1. Tide

Tide  
  
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She does not realize she has forgotten something (someone) until they are at the beach, as the waves chase after her running toes.   
  
It is a ghost (brush of déjà vu) on the edge of her thoughts, only touching her once, and then she is running again, laughing through the endless waves as her father chases and her mother laughs.  
  
Summer is bright and high, yellow heat everywhere, but the summer house is cool and dark like (something she cannot remember) the embrace of a misty morning. Her room is the highest, small and in the loft of the house made like a Western beach-home. She likes it there and thinks on how she would like to rest in her rolled bed as the waves crash against her ankles.  
  
Sand shifts like peach-colored snow, dribbling through her fingers when she cups it in her hands, watching with quiet interest as she extends a cycle: the sand is washed ashore and she lifts it, watches it fall through her hands to the sea again. (The sea is blue; deep, unending blue, as a wide, wide river that stretches on forever, and she wonders what this river is...)  
  
She loves the water and cannot explain it to her mother, who squeals when her father splashes at her. He chuckles at his wife and winks at Chihiro, who pauses to wrinkle her eyebrows together, suddenly wondering (why does Mom *squeal*?).   
  
But then it is her turn to be splashed, and she laughs, turning and turning (falling through the air, smiling and crying) and splashing into the water. Droplets of froth fall up to the sky, and she drops beneath the waves, feeling the giving tug of the ocean.  
  
Night comes and she sits on her bed, cross-legged and slowly eating a stolen candy of caramel. Starlight and the faint, dark blue rim of the ocean can be seen through the wooden cross of the circle window, and she pauses (her legs hang over the wooden edge, dangling as she bites into) chewing at the last sweet, tough bit.  
  
If she glances just so out the window, feeling the toughness of the caramel slowly melting into chewy softness, she can see a ribbon of white dancing back and forth, in quiet loops, over the water. (Him, she thinks, and does not know why.)  
  
She sneaks out in the morning, hoping to dash along the beach, bare feet in the wet sand as the tide slowly rolls in; Mom hates it when she runs barefoot on the beach, not paying any mind to the glass bottles high school kids might leave behind. (She is safe by the water, old magic and old memories.)   
  
The sea smells brighter, fuller, deeper in the morning, brine and wind and tangy sharpness, and she can taste the caramel still in the back of her mouth. It is exotic, the taste of sugar and stickiness and the scent of salt and fish; if she closes her eyes, she can imagine she is hovering (between worlds, watching a parade of light and bathing gods) on the precipice of heaven. Oh, she loves the sea, the ocean, the river, waters that are deep and blue and remind her of...  
  
She looks up and sees a boy. Dark, straight hair, in clothing too long for him: sweater sleeves out of place in summer heat, covering his hands, and long trousers that pillow in the sand as he crouches beside her, looking up while she stands. (Green eyes, narrow and angled to catch the light, and they are falling, falling, falling...)  
  
"Oh," she says, startled. "Who are you?" (Doesn't she know this, she thinks; isn't she supposed to know him?)  
  
He smiles sadly, distantly, and the salty wind sweeps through his dark slate hair in a shadowy cloud. "Hello, Chihiro," he says gently (and she still does not remember, though she knows him deeply, wholly inside) and his sweater brushes, brushes the sand as he moves slightly with the wind. "I thought I'd visit you with the tide." And the smile turns to radiance, quiet affection lit with ivory sunlight, and he holds the bottom of his hand up, asking and offering and simply existing.  
  
"Hi," she replies, confused and not too sure how he knows who she is (love you, love you, as we fall to the sea, to the sea). "Are you new here?"   
  
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Disclaimer: Haku, Chihiro, and the Ogino family are the creations of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. 


	2. Softly

Softly  
  
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The sky is nearing the thick, silken shade of midnight, and she is not afraid though the wind is parting before her and the sea is drawing nearer; she is falling, tears on her face, but his fingers are woven with hers, and she smiles: spiralling obsidian night and the deep scent of a murmuring sea, and his face melding into a purely contented smile; and--  
  
Water on her cheeks and she wakes, suddenly, turning sleepily beneath the thin summer sheets. She draws herself up, slightly chubby fingers hooking along the windowsill, and pressing her nose to the glass looks out to the beach and the surf. Nothing stirs along the sand, nor in the air, and wrinkling her nose at the crystalline bright moon, settles back away from the window. She crosses her legs, scrubbing a hand against her mouth to stifle a clumsy, wakening yawn.  
  
"Nn," she mumbles, blinking about in the darkness of the beach-house attic. She touches fingers absently to her cheeks, looking absently for moisture that is not there. A frown pulls her lips down, into a straining, thoughtful pout; her fingers pat alongside the cot for the small bag of candy secreted there. "Can't remember," she wrinkles her nose again, drawing a piece of caramel out.  
  
She wants to, but cannot, feeling warm and somehow wistful as she glances out the window again, to the blue of the sea and the black of the sky.  
  
White silk dances outside, and her jaw slowing as she chews the sugary-tough caramel, she leans up on her knees, holding a hand against the humid glass. "I remember you," she says softly, watching the ribbon twirl in the distance, glinting under the moon before vanishing into the waiting waters.   
  
And she does remember, for a moment, but it fades, sliding back into the sleepy warmth of a forgotten dream.  
  
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Disclaimer: Haku and Chihiro are the creations of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.  
  
(Originally posted at http://www.livejournal.com/~wolfhowln2) 


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